Laundry
by Angel Weasel-Woman
Summary: "Ed would never admit it, but he was scared." *Pre-Canon**One Shot*


Ed would never admit it, but he was scared.

It had been four months since his father packed up and left in the middle of the night. He knew his mother was trying to hide it, telling him and Alphonse that he was just on a trip, that he was coming back soon, that, of course, he still loved them all. But Ed, on those sleepless nights, could hear her coughing sobs as she mourned her empty bed. He wasn't sure how often she slept between the crying and the coughing that led to vomiting, but the brightness she showed was dimmed more often than not. Her grass green eyes became glassy, and dark circles were starting to form below them. Her hair was thinning, often appearing in their dinner in long clumps. Her clothes weren't fitting right anymore, and Ed noticed that, though she couldn't tie her apron any tighter, it still hung loose on her.

Alphonse seemed blissfully unaware, though. He laughed and giggled and tugged her weak hands to encourage her to play, to garden, to live. Her coughing always alarmed him, and the first time he saw blood on her handkerchief he cried for an hour before Trisha and Ed convinced him it was the tomato sauce they had all been eating. He seemed to take pleasure in brushing what remained of her hair, helping her cook when she could no longer stand, peeling and cutting vegetables when she was too scared to do so herself.

Ed raged at their father every chance he got. He took pride in announcing that, if he came home, Trisha would still have her hair; if he came home soon, she wouldn't have to work so hard in the garden and then come home and still have chores to do; if he hadn't left, she wouldn't have to make the long trek to market to sell her old clothes and best vegetables only to come home still short of money and bedridden the next day. Those nights, when Trisha left the room with tears in her eyes after Ed's ravings, Alphonse would stick his tongue out at him and spend the night at Pinako's, coming home early the next day with his arms full of Granny's treats for help try and fill out Trisha.

It was one such night, Alphonse was staying across the meadow with Winry and Pinako, and Ed was scrubbing dishes since Trisha had stumbled out of the room in sobs. All he'd said was, that if Hoenheim was going to leave, he hoped that he was dead in a ditch somewhere where not even the crows could find him. He didn't know why that had upset her and he told her, at least that way he wasn't with a young blonde like Pinako said he might be. Alphonse told him that he was being mean to their mother and ran off with his own tears, leaving Ed to stew in his anger. The usual chore hierarchy, dishes washed by their mother, clean ones put away by Ed, and the table cleaned by Al, was disrupted and that left everything to Ed. He'd already broken two plates, and he shattered another and a cup by the time he allowed the sink to drain. The wind was picking up and he wasn't sure if it was howling, or his mother.

The sky had been dark all day, and now the black clouds covered the full moon completely, casting everything into pitch. Ed's only light was the candle that had sat on the table at dinner and the flame jumped and danced at the wind creeping through the cracks in the windows. Fear began to creep down his spine as he remember the ghost stories he and Winry used to scare Alphonse with. A man with a claw for a hand, a woman looking for the children she drowned, children who didn't know they were dead and looking for playmates to go to Hell with them. The wind gusted, the front door flew open, the lock snapped, and Ed was already halfway down the hall, banging on his mother's door.

"Mama! Mama!" The candle was at his feet, dripping wax onto the hardwood. There was noone to answer, and Ed was sure that a ghost had his mother. "Mama!" His voice cracked, and so did the door under his pounding fists. All the locks in the house were old, starting to rust. The one to Trisha's bedroom gave way under the terrified six-year-old's adrenalin. Ed fell onto the floor, tripping over the candle and burning his knee. He cried out, the pain shocking him back to reality, and he looked up with teary eyes to see shadows dancing on the empty bed.

The sheets were mussed, as though someone had been there previously, but Trisha was gone. Ed stood, grabbing the candle, and looked around.

"Mama?" he called tentatively. Where could she be? "Mama, where are you?"

Had she run away? Like Alphonse? Ed lowered his eyes. Maybe what he'd said made his mother mad at him. Mad enough to abandon him like Hoenheim did...? He didn't mean to be bad – he was just trying to tell her what Granny had said to him. Tears were already his his eyes as he called out for his mother, searching in all the usual hiding spots for mothers and monsters: under the bed, in the closet, in the bathing room, behind the door.

She was gone. She had left, and he was all alone. Ed wiped his nose on his shirtsleeve and blew out the candle. Maybe if he was good tonight, she would come back. He went to place the candle on her dresser when he noticed, out the window, a tall shape out by the laundry line. Thunder cracked like a whip and the sky suddenly opened, drenching the small valley town of Risembool in a torrential rain. Lightning flashed and illuminated only shaped and shadows, but Ed could still see someone outside. Someone with long hair and in a long dress.

"Mama?" Ed called, his voice lost to his own ears over the crashing waves of rain. He was scared of ghosts, but more scared of losing his mother.

The front door was still open, and rain had poured in almost to the kitchen. Ed grabbed a nearby umbrella – not to open, but to beat off any ghosts that might come between him and his mother. He didn't even have to step one foot out the door before he was soaked to the bone, but he trudged on. The ten feet between the house and the laundry line seemed like ten miles to the frightened child, but he pressed on. When the wind slacked between gusts, he could hear some humming. His mother's voice singing the same lullaby she used when they were babies. Ed swallowed hard, readying the umbrella just in case a devil had taken on her voice.

"Mama? Are you ok?"

Trisha turned and lighting struck. Her hair was undone, plastered to her head and shoulders. She w as wearing her usual dress and apron, though they clung to her body like drowned fur on a rat. By her feet was a basket filled with water and in her hands she was hanging a shirt he didn't know she still had. Her eyes, usually a glassy green nowadays, were bright lime in the storm's light. Somehow that glint, that reflection of lightning, was most terrifying.

"Oh, sweetie," Trisha laughed. Not her normal laugh, but something a bit more... off. Like another person giggling through her. "Of course I'm fine. Would you like to help mommy with the laundry?"

"Are... are you washing it?"

"Of course not." Another giggle that wasn't hers. "I'm putting them out to dry. This is such a perfect night for laundry." She reached down into the basket of water and pulled out another of Hoenheim's shirts. "Your father is off on one of his trips again, but I know he'll be back soon. He always comes back home. He wants clean laundry. You can never have too many dry shirts. If mommy doesn't dry his shirts, he won't come back. You can't expect your father to not wear anything around the house." The shirt was being carefully hung on the line. It dripped with rainwater as she hummed and straightened it out. "This wind will make it smell like a summer garden, now won't it sweetie? Just think, once mommy finishes the laundry, daddy will be home again. I'm sure that's why he left – his clothes were dirty." She blinked and her eyes became vacant.

Ed wasn't sure if he was crying or it was just the rain. "Mama... come inside, please?"

She turned towards him, another lightening flash illuminating her citrus eyes. There was a despair to them that Ed never wanted to see again. "Mommy needs to be a good wife. That way Daddy will come home. Daddy never much cared for women that weren't good wives."

Ed reached out, grabbing Trisha's hand. He fell to his knees, sobbing, grasping her limp fingers. "Daddy doesn't care about good wives!" he cried. "I need a good Mommy!"

Thunder roared and arms wrapped around Ed's small frame. Wet tendrils of thin hair clung to his neck and face as Trisha held him close, whispering to him. "I'm sorry, sweetie. I'm sorry my baby-Edward."

Ed was carried into the house, held on his mother's shoulder like when he was a baby. Trisha was crooning and humming as she lay him down in his bed. They were both soaked to the bone, but neither felt it.

"Don't worry, sweetie," Trisha whispered. Their faces were both wet with warm rain. "Mommy will be here. All I need to be is a good mommy, instead of a good wife, now. Good night, baby-Edward."

Ed clung to his pillow, falling asleep in his wet clothing as his mother gently brushed his soaked bangs over and over.

Ed's eyes flew open and he gasped. His bangs stuck to his face from sweat, and his metal arm was cold on his clammy forehead. The moon peered in through his window and he saw Al look up from his spot on the floor.

"Big brother? Are you all right?" Al's voice echoed within himself.

"Yeah... Yeah. Just... a bad dream." _A bad memory..._

"About what?" Al had almost forgotten what it was like to dream, and he wanted to know about them every time Ed woke up.

"Nothing..." Ed sighed. That Douglas woman must be getting to him...

* * *

><p>I wrote this mid-series-ish, so if the ages are off, blame my bad memory. I don't own FMA or anything associated with it.<p> 


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